The Irish government was under fire last night over plans to give an IR£8.8 million 'bribe' to Nigeria in a controversial deal to speed up the deportation of asylum-seekers from the Republic.

The Observer has learnt that Ireland will sign a repatriation agreement with the government in Lagos on 29 August, part of which allows for the 'enhancement of Irish aid' to Nigeria.

A senior source in the Nigerian embassy in Dublin said £8.8m will be given to Nigeria in return for co-operation in sending asylum seekers back to the African country. The Minister for Justice, John O'Donoghue, is expected to sign the deal in Lagos, Nigeria's capital.

News of the deal was greeted with dismay last night. The impending agreement has spread fear among Ireland's African community, according to Gabriel Olugboyega Ohkenla of the pan- African community centre in Dublin's Moore Street.

'People are wondering who's going to go first. The police come to your house, give you a few hours to pack and then you're taken to the prison. There's no time to say goodbye or finish your business here, you're just gone.'

Green MEP Patricia McKenna described the package as 'sinister' yesterday. 'Basically they're bribing the Lagos government to take these people back.

'John O'Donoghue doesn't care what happens to them once they get there, he just wants to get them out of here. The sooner we get rid of this fortress mentality, the better.' She said Nigeria, where up to 500 people have been killed in ethnic violence this month, was an 'unsafe country'.

'I think any pretence that the whole procedure is about justice is now out the window,' said McKenna. 'These agreements show John O'Donoghue doesn't really know what justice is.'

Five hundred Nigerians are currently awaiting deportation from Ireland, and the first 25 are due to be sent home within days of O'Donoghue signing the new agreement. The deportees will be held in detention cells, some in Mountjoy prison, as they await flights to Lagos.

A spokesperson for the Department of Justice said each deportation could cost the tax payer up to IR£6,000, adding up to a total cost of IR£3 million for all Nigerians currently holding deportation orders.

Amnesty International has expressed concern about deportees being held in prison. 'A prison is never a suitable place to detain a person not convicted of a criminal offence. It's morally untenable that we put deportees into Mountjoy,' said Fiona Crowley, the refugee and legal officer.

Just under 4,000 people applied for asylum in the Republic in the first six months of this year, a drop of almost 1,000 on the same period last year. Of these 1,392 were Nigerians, and 499 were Romanians.

The government currently has a repatriation agreement with Romania and similar deals with Poland and Bulgaria are pending. Only 15 per cent of applications for asylum are successful.

In a bid to send more people home home, the government has increased the staff at the bureau dealing with asylum applications from 22 in 1997 to a current figure of 400.

A Department of Justice spokesman claimed it was 'more humane' to send asylum seekers home if it was known their applications would fail. 'That's why we're getting the extra staff and that's why these new repatriation agreements are in place,' he said.

He added that 37 people had applied for voluntary repatriation in 1999, a figure which had jumped to 251 in 2000. However welfare groups and Amnesty dispute the authenticity of that claim.

'In some countries a deportation stamp on your passport can make it very difficult for you to travel again. Also they don't want to go to prison here,' said Crowley. 'So you have people who agree to go voluntarily. That doesn't mean that they really want to go home.'

A spokesperson for the recently established Garda Immigration Bureau which oversees 'repatriations', said rumours that 500 people will be deported in September are 'pie in the sky.' 'We simply don't have the resources to deal with those kind of numbers,' he said.